President Obama Hosts Ramadan Dinner

What are you doing tonight? President Obama will be celebrating the Islamic faith. From The Hill:

President Obama will host an iftar — the special evening meal observed during Ramadan — on Friday night in the White House dining room.

Ramadan began on Wednesday and will end around Sept. 10.

Obama participated in a similar gathering last year.

Celebrations like iftar dinners “remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings,” Obama wrote in a statement Wednesday.

“Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality … a reminder that Islam has always been part of America and that American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country.”

The dinner comes amid a growing controversy over the proposed construction of an Islamic cultural center in downtown Manhattan, near the site of the World Trade Center. A CNN poll released Wednesday found that 68 percent of the public opposes the project.

Meanwhile, the White House — which has made great efforts to reach out to the Muslim community — has been silent on the issue.

“This is rightly a matter for New York City and the local community to decide,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbstold reporters on Aug. 3.

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Would someone tell me how I am supposed to react to this? I am bad and thinking for myself.

I always get it wrong.

Hadrian999

i'm sure your mom will be along shortly

Andrew

Islam and Socialism are the same thing, so why wouldn't Obama celebrate them?.

Your Mom

You're (probably) trying to be funny by suggesting that Obama's critics are foolishly making rash, vague and unsubstantiated charges against socialism and Islam in an attempt to smear the President. But your comment is actually more correct than you (probably) realize. In the '20s, economist Ludwig Von Mises wrote,

“The rapid expanse of socialism has been compared to that of Christianity. More appropriate, perhaps, would be a comparison with Islam, which inspired the sons of the desert to lay waste ancient civilizations, cloaked their destructive fury with an ethical ideology and stiffened their courage with rigid fatalism. ” In a footnote to this passage, Mises wrote, “Thus Marxism finds it easy to ally with Islamic zealotism. Full of pride the Marxist Otto Bauer cries, 'In Turkestan and Azerbaijan monuments to Marx stand opposite the mosques, and the Mullah in Persia mingles quotations from Marx with passages from the Koran when he calls the people to the Holy War against European Imperialism.'” (From Mises “Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis”)

You can routinely see a milder version of this socialist alliance with Islamic radicalism in The Guardian, a staunchly leftist British paper with a shameful record of tacitly or explicitly condoning the brutal discrimination against women in many Islamic nations.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Which explains with perfect clarity why America easily recruited the deeply religious Islamic crowd to fight on its behalf in Afghanistan against the Soviets…because Islam and Marxism with its chewy anti-religion center were a match made in heaven. Uh…yeah.

Try not to put so much stock in quotes from people attempting (badly) to draw associations between two things they already hate…both of which (not by coincidence) stood between European Imperialism/capitalism and its goal…subverting local leadership and markets to the control of outside agencies and interests.

Exile

I believe the US was donating weapons so that the Afgans could harrass the Soviets; You know, the old “My enemy's enemy is my friend”. theory.

Of course I could be completely wrong and the same individuals that fought against the Soviets are fighting along side uthe US, trying to secure Afganistan from fanatical Muslims.

Furthermore, the reason the Soviets were in Afganistan was to stop the influence of fanatical Muslims on their Southern border. Muslims want the whole world, including the former Soviet Union to be a Muslim Theocracy, not just the US.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Your last paragraph makes the schizophrenia show. Take the pills and 'they' won't be out to get you and the whole world anymore…then you'll only have to worry about the evangelicals…who really do want dominion for Christ over the entire planet at any cost.

Gemmarama

have you actually ever read the guardian? i buy the guardian every day, as it is the only newspaper left in this country in which one can hear a multitude of opposing opinions expressed without any dogmatic editorial agenda determined by market forces. the rest have unfortunately gone the way of your american tabloids.

i would say don't criticise what you can't understand but then that would leave you somewhat lost for words, wouldn't it?

Connie Dobbs

To the conservative, any news source that does not absolutely parrot their world view is “leftist”. In case you were wondering, that's why they're very very ignorant, despite what they like to believe. They know very much about what they're told (or told to read), but rarely about anything else.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

I'm sure the GOP will be collectively shitting blood over this…while experiencing mass amnesia regarding Prince Bandar 'Bush' of the Saudi's and all his palling around with Dubya and family.

For anyone who is observant, enjoy your Ramadan…I'm an atheist for the most part, so I'll be eating whatever I like, whenever I like…but people should enjoy whatever customs and traditions they want…so have fun!

Do I really have to take time out to explain the difference between a celebratory dinner for a holiday and people who get on live TV and engage in politics deserving of derision (though it is is legal for them to do so if they wish…the derision is just a consequence of being ignorant in public…a pain you likely understand well by now)?

…or can we just assume as granted that you're a bitter divisive little conserva-troll that knows the difference but doesn't care?

I'll back anybodies right to voice their thoughts, live the way they choose, believe as they see fit etc…but once they barge onto the public scene and aren't content with fucking up their own life…making it a goal to potentially impact negatively on mine…the sarcasm shotgun is loaded and they've made themselves fair targets.

E.B. Wolf

You forgot NASCAR watching, hypocritical, and brain-dead.That being said, I'd say nuking them is going a bit too far. I'd settle for mass-sterilization.

Connie Dobbs

Yeah, but for their theocratic demagoguery not for their customs or traditions. I like christmas ham. good stuff!!!!

Exile

I don't get what about the Bush family, starting with Bush Sr. provoking Iraq to attack Kuwait so he could liberate Kuwait and sign lucrative oil contracts has to do with Obama being a Muslim. But I love a good conspiracy and will entertain any explanation you have to offer.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Well, let me be specific. If the source of conservative horror and dismay is that Obama shows his peaceful association with people of Muslim faith…then Bush's actions (ie: a long friendship and business relationship that has granted Bandar incredible access) would or should be viewed with similar horror. The irony and hypocrisy dwells in the fact that very very few people in the neo-con bracket have any complaints about cozy conduct between their hero and Arabs…they reserve the horror and disgust exclusively for Dems.

Is that clearer? There's no conspiracy theory involved…the GOP are just the usual run of the mill everyday hypocritical fail-bags.

Butter Knife

And, lest we forget, Fox News is a major source of funding for the “Terror Mosque”. It could be a conspiracy, or it could be idiocy, but either way it’s 100% pure nonsense.

A Bad Joke

He hosts Christmas dinners too. Probably has a Hannukah dinner too. Celebrates Easter, I'm sure. The Obama's don't seem overly religious, but if they didn't keep up appearances the South would secede again and California would sink into the ocean.

Hadrian999

do you think anyone would actually try and stop the south from going this time?

Search 'youtube Obama Easter' and then search 'youtube Obama Ramadan' and then answer this question:

Which holiday does he seem to know and care about the most?

Connie Dobbs

Easter's a fertility festival (anyone who tells you otherwise has a serious case of cognitive dissonance), it's supposed to be fun. Ramadan's not a “chocolate easter bunny fucking in a basket of boiled eggs” holiday, and as such, no basketball is required.

Butter Knife

To be fair, the Christians co-opted this one pretty legitimately. While many don’t quite catch the fact that Good Friday is the -exact- same day as Passover, and consequently miss that the Last Supper was a seder,it actually ties into Christianity’s Jewish roots and is a fairly significant point of congruence.

Now that said: why the Jews decided to put Passover on Pagan Easter, and why Christians took up the Pagan name rather than devising their own, more descriptive, one are separate questions.

Your Mom

I take it all back. I have seen the light. Conservatives really are a bunch of idiots.

Andrew

Impersonating others, however obtuse, is not cool.

Andrew

Now that I think about it, it's totally cool.

Andrew

You would think that.

American Against OBAMA

OUT OF HERE OBAMA. GO BACK TO YOUR HOMELAND.

American Against OBAMA

OUT OF HERE OBAMA. GO BACK TO YOUR HOMELAND.

Butter Knife

And, lest we forget, Fox News is a major source of funding for the “Terror Mosque”. It could be a conspiracy, or it could be idiocy, but either way it’s 100% pure nonsense.

Butter Knife

To be fair, the Christians co-opted this one pretty legitimately. While many don’t quite catch the fact that Good Friday is the -exact- same day as Passover, and consequently miss that the Last Supper was a seder,it actually ties into Christianity’s Jewish roots and is a fairly significant point of congruence.

Now that said: why the Jews decided to put Passover on Pagan Easter, and why Christians took up the Pagan name rather than devising their own, more descriptive, one are separate questions.